“What do you fear, lady?' he asked. 'A cage,' she said.”; All Kingdom

[Ygritte]

BETTER BEWARE, I GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT
DEVIL-MAY-CARE WITH A LUST FOR LIFE

Her features relax slightly when Kreios appears. The mare was not alone after all.

The familiar face of the appaloosa is smooth but his voice betrays the finest flecks of concern. At least Ygritte is not the only one who has noticed the absence of the grizzled old man. Her own coral muzzle touches the stallion's lightly in the mutual greeting. Cocoa visage reflecting his own as her features flatten slightly, lips thinned and brow furrowed beneath the salmon plume of her forelock. Her gaze shifts slightly around him as if she studied the wisps of clouds on the autumn horizon like a fortune teller. The whereabouts of Texas.

Pools return the Kreios. "No, but I'm not really surprised. The old man has his own agenda...it seems as if he always had." Tones end more abruptly than she really intends too but Ygritte does not correct it. "Kreios, I've done some thinking..." The pause lasts just a few heartbeats. "I believe Texas is gone but he would have not left the Falls if he did not believe we were fully capable of taking his position. I know he asked you to come for a reason and I believe this is it." Ygritte hoped the spotted stallion understood what she was saying. But just for good measure-

"How you feel about being co-rulers, Kreios?"

Ygritte finds herself trying for the right words but her last statement comes out a bit blunt but so be it. The mare felt a change in her being, shedding some sort of softness that had previously occupied a place in her. She felt a sense of emergence of a new trait, a new part of her.

A Queen.

Ygritte.